AQA A Level psychology

The 2018 examiner reports for AQA A Level Psychology exams were positive, with students largely able to demonstrate their preparation and knowledge. However, now the dust has settled we have prepared a short summary of suggestions for this year’s cohort to learn from, along with some free resources to help them tackle these issues. Key […]

Although most schools have settled on the options they are teaching in AQA Psychology, many have had to make difficult choices; comparison of the available options seems to be a constant topic of conversation between teachers. While writing multiple choice questions for The Complete Companions for AQA Kerboodle , I noticed a few less obvious differences between the topics and hope […]

I know many people feel the new AQA specification is overloaded – so I decided to conduct a rough comparison of the old and new specifications by comparing the number of spreads in the old and new Complete Companions . Each spread roughly equals one essay topic. What I found is in the table below. The option topics […]

Over the last two-and-a-half years, I have been the lead editor for Oxford’s The Complete Companions for AQA Psychology Kerboodle . As we launch the remaining resources for the Year 2 options this month, I thought now would be a fitting time to share three particular things we’ve learned. Trialling with teachers is the way forward Back in the spring of 2014, […]

In this post I’m going to look at ideas for introducing mental disorders. The AQA specification states students need to know and understand behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias, depression and OCD before considering each of the named disorders from a specific perspective: behavioural approach (phobias explanation and treatment), cognitive approach (depression explanation and treatment) […]

Two key animal studies are named by the AQA specification: Lorenz’s research with goslings and Harlow’s study of infant rhesus monkeys. Here’s a lesson plan for the topic. Introducing the topic Enter the phrase, ‘unusual animal friends’ into a search engine to find lots of examples of unlikely animal attachments. Either show the class a […]

New challenges are coming thick and fast for all of us: getting to grips with new assessment objectives, exam formats and marking systems as well as whole new topics to teach. For those of us planning schemes of work, the linear course gives a welcome flexibility, but this lack of a fixed half-time marker can […]

This topic contains a lot of vocabulary that students may not have previously encountered. I find it useful to take time in the lesson to discuss the meaning of key words to help students understand the function or location of different aspects of the nervous system. Please note, a version of a lesson PowerPoint has been […]

In my experience the most effective way of helping students understand the experimental method is through carrying out an experiment with the class. The Teacher’s Companion (handouts 137 and 138) contains resources to conduct a class memory experiment or you could run a simple Stroop test as explained below. The following activities could be used […]

I genuinely enjoy teaching lessons involving statistical tests in psychology. There is no sarcasm here; I think they are fun to teach! For those of us who have migrated from AQA A the sign test is new – as is teaching statistical tests at AS (or year one). What follows is my basic proposal for […]